A few months ago, The Guardian posted an article about cryonics entitled, “You can take it with you! The billionaires freezing themselves for another chance at life – and riches.”
It’s an almost perfect example of what’s wrong with the way journalism covers cryonics.
Typically, editors and not journalists title a piece, so the optimistic tone and promise very likely came from someone who did not write the article. An article based on that title would have been a rather good one. Wouldn’t you like to know which billionaires specifically have signed up? Musk? Bezos?
Not as yet. But others have. (Peter Thiel—co-founder of Paypal; Robert Miller—founder of Future Electronics; Martine Rothblatt—founder of SiriusXM and United Therapeutics.)
The list of not-quite-billionaires (Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy and The Orville, AI philosopher Nick Bolstrom, Ray Kurzweil, former Director of Engineering at Google and author of The Singularity Is Near) are notable too.
The article says nothing about any of them. Instead we’re given the usual, completely inaccurate, description of people being “frozen” (as opposed to vitrified) and quotes like “The idea of cryopreservation has gone from crackpot to merely eccentric.”
Next we’re told that the price tag for cryonic suspension is a mere $200,000. But that there’s a significant cut (excuse the pun) in price if the suspendee opts to become an invariably-mentioned severed head. Only $80,000 out of pocket there!
No mention of the Cryonics Institute, where full-body is priced as low as $28,000 for Lifetime members. And also no mention that in all the above cases, suspensions can be covered by life insurance.
Yes, reader: the cost of cryonic suspension—and decades if not centuries of life—can cost less than the price of a monthly cable subscription.
After this we learn that some in cryonics are concerned with preserving their existing wealth. Why not? Perhaps the future will resemble Star Trek, with replicators able to supply you with all variety of food and consumer goods, and galaxies of available real estate space.
But maybe not. Better to wake up with billions than broke, no? And indeed, given compound interest, and a few centuries, waking up as a billionaire seems quite likely.
Long-term asset preservation is an interesting subject. That’s why the Cryonics Society has an entire book-length section dedicated to the topic, with over a dozen articles by persons of wealth in the cryonics field.
But are there any links or references to that section in the article? No. Any extended discussion of financial complexities involved? No. Instead we get the writer’s thoughtful conclusion:
Do say: “You know what, when my time’s up, it’s up. I’ll leave everything to the donkey sanctuary.”
Don’t say: “Where am I? Who am I? Why am I just a head?”
One can send The Guardian a letter of protest and correction, and the Cryonics Society has. Sadly, The Guardian does not allow comments. Unfortunately it’s appears easier to print misinformation than correct it.
We are still waiting. When cryonics began, its viability could reasonably be questioned. Less so today. The acceleration of technological development in the years since Robert Ettinger first wrote The Prospect of Immortality (and the hyper-acceleration that the internet and now AI are now producing) have given cryonics a new veneer of near-inevitability. With an emphasis on ‘near’: in a 2002 interview, Ray Kurweil predicted the first cryonics restoration would arrive between 2042 and 2052. The Singularity is nearer, and so are Kurzweil’s predictions.
Is that really possible? Could cryonics be here in only a decade or two?
If so, it won’t be because of journalism like The Guardian. Why sloppiness and distortions like the above persist is one of the enduring mysteries of cryonics.
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